Ender Saga: Speaker for the Dead | Orson Scott Card
It has been three thousand years since Ender unknowingly destroyed the buggers in the Third Invasion. Ender has stayed young by traveling from planet to planet at relativistic speeds. He is called from planet to planet to speak for their dead, a practice that has become common over the past three thousand years. No one knows that Andrew Wiggin is really Ender, the infamous figure who committed the horrific Xenocide. In that time, many new planets have been discovered, but none of them have had sapient alien life forms on them, except for one. The planet Lusitania is inhabited by small, primitive pig-like creatures that the explorers call Pequeninos. Could this be humanity’s chance at redemption from the Xenocide? As soon as word gets out that a sapient alien race has been discovered, Lusitania is colonized, and xenologers interact with the Pequeninos to learn about them, although the Starways Congress puts strict laws around what can be shared and what can’t be shared with the Pequeninos. On a planet many light years away, Trondheim, Ender has finally settled down teaching. But on Lusitania, a Xenologer is killed by the Pequeninos, and someone calls for a Speaker for the Dead. Ender quickly departs from Trondheim, leaving Valentine behind, and goes to Trondheim. There, he speaks the truth about the people on the planet’s lives. But soon he is caught up in the crossfire between Lusitania and the Starways Congress as it is revealed that the Xenologists had shared something that they shouldn’t have shared with the Pequeninos. Will Ender be able to learn what the Pequeninos have been hiding and do what is ethically right? Or is humanity heading for a second Xenocide?
I would recommend Speaker to the Dead to anyone who enjoyed Ender’s Game. In some ways, I think it’s even better than Ender’s Game. There is some mature content, so it may not be suitable for younger readers. Just like Ender’s Game, it provokes some interesting ethical questions about right and wrong that will keep you thinking long after you finish the book.
Genre: Science Fiction, Fiction
Age Group: 13+
Rating Out of Five Stars: 4
Series: Yes – Two out of six in the Ender Saga series. The companion series is the Shadow series.
Fiction or Nonfiction: Fiction
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